Socialism: Utopian and Scientific - MIA

More documents

Recommendations

Info

Socialism: Utopian and Scientific (Chpt. 1)time one of the few born leaders of men. Robert Owen had adopted the teaching of the materialisticphilosophers: that man's character is the product, on the one hand, of heredity; on the other, of theenvironment of the individual during his lifetime, and especially during his period of development. In theindustrial revolution most of his class saw only chaos and confusion, and the opportunity of fishing inthese troubled waters and making large fortunes quickly. He saw in it the opportunity of putting intopractice his favorite theory, and so of bringing order out of chaos. He had already tried it with success, assuperintendent of more than 500 men in a Manchester factory. From 1800 to 1829, he directed the greatcotton mill at New Lanark, in Scotland, as managing partner, along the same lines, but with greaterfreedom of action and with a success that made him a European reputation. A population, originallyconsisting of the most diverse and, for the most part, very demoralized elements, a population thatgradually grew to 2,500, he turned into a model colony, in which drunkenness, police, magistrates,lawsuits, poor laws, charity, were unknown. And all this simply by placing the people in conditionsworthy of human beings, and especially by carefully bringing up the rising generation. He was thefounder of infant schools, and introduced them first at New Lanark. At the age of two, the children cameto school, where they enjoyed themselves so much that they could scarely be got home again. Whilst hiscompetitors worked their people 13 or 14 hours a day, in New Lanark the working-day was only 10 and ahalf hours. When a crisis in cotton stopped work for four months, his workers received their full wagesall the time. And with all this the business more than doubled in value, and to the last yielded largeprofits to its proprietors.In spite of all this, Owen was not content. The existence which he secured for his workers was, in hiseyes, still far from being worthy of human beings. "The people were slaves at my mercy." The relativelyfavorable conditions in which he had placed them were still far from allowing a rational development ofthe character and of the intellect in all directions, much less of the free exercise of all their faculties."And yet, the working part of this population of 2,500 persons was daily producing as much real wealthfor society as, less than half a century before, it would have required the working part of a population of600,000 to create. I asked myself, what became of the difference between the wealth consumed by 2,500persons and that which would have been consumed by 600,000?" [3]The answer was clear. It had been used to pay the proprietors of the establishment 5 per cent on thecapital they had laid out, in addition to over 300,000 pounds clear profit. And that which held for NewLanark held to a still greater extent for all the factories in England."If this new wealth had not been created by machinery, imperfectly as it has been applied, the wars ofEurope, in opposition to Napoleon, and to support the aristocratic principles of society, could not havebeen maintained. And yet this new power was the creation of the working-classes."Note, l. c., p.22.To them, therefore, the fruits of this new power belonged. The newly-created gigantic productive forces,hitherto used only to enrich individuals and to enslave the masses, offered to Owen the foundations for areconstruction of society; they were destined, as the common property of all, to be worked for thecommon good of all.Owen's communism was based upon this purely business foundation, the outcome, so to say, ofcommercial calculation. Throughout, it maintained this practical character. Thus, in 1823, Owenproposed the relief of the distress in Ireland by Communist colonies, and drew up complete estimates ofhttp://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1880/soc-utop/ch01.htm (8 of 10) [23/08/2000 17:41:05]
Socialism: Utopian and Scientific (Chpt. 1)costs of founding them, yearly expenditure, and probably revenue. And in his definite plan for the future,the technical working out of details is managed with such practical knowledge — ground plan, front andside and bird's-eye views all included — that the Owen method of social reform once accepted, there isfrom the practical point of view little to be said against the actual arrangement of details.His advance in the direction of Communism was the turning-point in Owen's life. As long as he wassimply a philanthropist, he was rewarded with nothing but wealth, applause, honor, and glory. He wasthe most popular man in Europe. Not only men of his own class, but statesmen and prince listened to himapprovingly. But when he came out with his Communist theories that was quite another thing. Threegreat obstacles seemed to him especially to block the path to social reform: private property, religion, thepresent form of marriage.He knew what confronted him if he attacked these — outlawry, excommunication from official society,the loss of his whole social position. But nothing of this prevented him from attacking them without fearof consequences, and what he had foreseen happened. Banished from official society, with a conspiracyof silence against him in the press, ruined by his unsuccessful Communist experiments in America, inwhich he sacrificed all his fortune, he turned directly to the working-class and continued working in theirmidst for 30 years. Every social movement, every real advance in England on behalf of the workers linksitself on to the name of Robert Owen. He forced through in 1819, after five years' fighting, the first lawlimiting the hours of labor of women and children in factories. He was president of the first Congress atwhich all the Trade Unions of England united in a single great trade association. He introduced astransition measures to the complete communistic organization of society, on the one hand, cooperativesocieties for retail trade and production. These have since that time, at least, given practical proof that themerchant and the manufacturer are socially quite unnecessary. On the other hand, he introduced laborbazaars for the exchange of the products of labor through the medium of labor-notes, whose unit was asingle hour of work; institutions necessarily doomed to failure, but completely anticipating Proudhon'sbank of exchange of a much later period, and differing entirely from this in that it did not claim to be thepanacea for all social ills, but only a first step towards a much more radical revolution of society.The Utopians' mode of thought has for a long time governed the Socialist ideas of the 19th century, andstill governs some of them. Until very recently, all French and English Socialists did homage to it. Theearlier German Communism, including that of Weitling, was of the same school. To all these, Socialismis the expression of absolute truth, reason and justice, and has only to be discovered to conquer all theworld by virtue of its own power. And as an absolute truth is independent of time, space, and of thehistorical development of man, it is a mere accident when and where it is discovered. With all this,absolute truth, reason, and justice are different with the founder of each different school. And as eachone's special kind of absolute truth, reason, and justice is again conditioned by his subjectiveunderstanding, his conditions of existence, the measure of his knowledge and his intellectual training,there is no other ending possible in this conflict of absolute truths than that they shall be mutuallyexclusive of one another. Hence, from this nothing could come but a kind of eclectic, average Socialism,which, as a matter of fact, has up to the present time dominated the minds of most of the socialistworkers in France and England. Hence, a mish-mash allowing of the most manifold shades of opinion: amish-mash of such critical statements, economic theories, pictures of future society by the founders ofdifferent sects, as excite a minimum of opposition; a mish-mash which is the more easily brewed themore definite sharp edges of the individual constituents are rubbed down in the stream of debate, likerounded pebbles in a brook.http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1880/soc-utop/ch01.htm (9 of 10) [23/08/2000 17:41:05]
Page 1 and 2: Written: Between January and March
Page 3 and 4: MIA (français) - Engels: Socialism
Page 5 and 6: Socialism: Utopian and Scientific (
Page 25: Socialism: Utopian and Scientific (
Page 49 and 50: 1877: Anti-Duhringboth his Kritisch
Page 51 and 52: 1877: Anti-DuhringIII were combined
Page 53 and 54: 1877: Anti-DuhringPart III: Sociali
Page 55 and 56: Encyclopedia of Marxism: Larepublic
Page 57 and 58: Encyclopedia of Marxism: LaFrench s
Page 59: MIA - Engels: L'evoluzione del soci

Socialism: Utopian and Scientific - MIA

Create successful ePaper yourself

Delete template?

Save as template?